Hello Stranger

by Katherine Center

Of course those aren’t the only things that make you you. You are also your whole life story. And your sense of humor. And your homemade doughnut recipe. And your love for ghost stories. And the way you savor ocean breezes. And the appreciation you have for how the colors pink and orange go together. You’re not just your face, is what I mean. But man, it sure is a big part of you. Like your shadow. So faithfully and constantly with you, you don’t even notice it.

“Our thoughts create our emotions. So if you fixate on your worst-case scenario, you’ll make things harder for yourself.”

Another highly likable woman described her face blindness as a “superpower,” saying she treated every person she interacted with like a dear friend—just in case those people turned out to actually be dear friends.

She learned a lot about people that way, she said—but more than that, it meant that almost every interaction she had with other people was infused with warmth and affection. In a way, there were no strangers.

Dogs were so good at forgiveness.

It was love at first sight—and I couldn’t even see him. Okay, I take it back. It wasn’t love. Love requires actually having spoken to a person. At the minimum. Maybe it was infatuation at first sight. Or preoccupation. Or obsession.

More important, if I married him, would I change my name?

Was I manufacturing a crush for myself to give my wounded brain something to focus on that wasn’t deeply, hopelessly depressing? Sure. Probably. Was there anything wrong with that? Not in the slightest.

Maybe a few good thoughts were just what the doctor ordered. Or the veterinarian, as the case may be.

“You’re very in your head,” she said. “I’d like to see you dip into your heart.” “I like it in my head.” “But that’s not really where we live.”

ONCE I’D GIVEN in, I planned our wedding the whole way home.

And, somehow, not calling it a date made it feel even more like a date. Did that mean we were dating? Pretty damn close! Right? And, of course, once you started dating someone, you inevitably got married. So we were essentially engaged.

“Basically we tend to decide on what the world is and who people are and how things are—and then we look for evidence that supports what we’ve already decided. And we ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”

But the delight of it—the absolute, blissful, embodied pleasure of it—made it okay somehow. I felt that familiar ache of longing, but now mixed with something new. Joy, maybe. The sunshine and the breeze and the music and the motion and the rhythm. An awareness of the glorious, impossible miracle of being alive.

Isn’t it lucky when we’re drawn to people who can teach us things we need to learn?

We see what we’re looking for.

Knowing how much I used to be missing has taught me to pay better attention. To pause from the hustle more often and just take it all in.

Seeing the world differently helps you see things not just that other people can’t—but that you yourself never could if you weren’t so lucky. It lets you make your own rules. Color outside your own lines. Allow yourself another way of seeing.

We’re all so steeped in our own confirmation bias. We’re all so busy seeing what we expect to see.

Sometimes we really are the best versions of ourselves. I see that about us. And I’m determined to keep seeing that about us. Because that really might be the truest thing I’ll ever know: The more good things you look for, the more you find.